


An Inconvenient Truth (With Apologies to Al Gore)

by OystersAintForMe



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: ...that's it really, Climate Change, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 21:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OystersAintForMe/pseuds/OystersAintForMe
Summary: Global warming might not be as awesome as the gang thought.(Inspired by the upcoming episode "The Gang Solves Global Warming"; written before the episode has aired bc I'm going nuts and I need some semblance of control in a chaotic world)





	An Inconvenient Truth (With Apologies to Al Gore)

**Author's Note:**

> lmao anyone else losing their minds over this episode??? i'm honestly not expecting much in terms of mac and dennis bc i dont trust like that so i needed to vent. ??? idk. hope someone likes it! 
> 
> (ps yes i am still working on my longform fic! the next chapter is just giving me some trouble and ive got some work stuff but im hoping to publish it soon!)

When the air conditioner shat the bed four hours into Paddy’s Heatwave Party, Dennis had assumed that everyone would go home; seven hours later, they were still here. Probably because of the “girls drink free” special Dennis had suggested. Stupid fucking idea. They hadn’t even set a limit on it. Now the bar was full of shitfaced twentysomething chicks dancing around in their bras and short-shorts, and _normally _that would be amazing. Except.

Well, Dennis doesn’t do so great in the heat. To be fair, he doesn’t do well in the cold, either, but at least in the cold you can always put on more clothes, pile on more blankets, build a fire if you really need to. In the heat, there’s only so much you can strip off before you’re down to nothing but your sweaty skin. And that’s not exactly something Dennis relishes doing in public these days. 

Mac has no problem with it, obviously. Dennis would never say it to his face, but right now, Mac is truly at his physical peak. When Dennis came back from North Dakota and Mac was all roided out, that wasn’t good—he was too angular, too sharp, too different from the softer Mac that Dennis was expecting to return to. Maybe the change wouldn’t have been so noticeable if Dennis had been there every day to witness it happening, or if he had checked any of Mac’s social media accounts even a couple of times, but instead, he buried his head in the sand (well, snow) the entire time he was gone and he came back to some ripped, beefcake Mac that he barely recognized. Dennis had hated him for it.

But _now_, Mac’s body has settled somewhere between glamour-muscles-only and straight-up jacked; he’s still strong, but there’s a hint of softness again, and it works, and the true irony is that Mac could probably score any of the topless girls in the bar right now if he wanted to. But he doesn’t. Not anymore. 

But it’s not like Dennis really wants to get laid right now, either. Not in this heat. Not at this age. People say a lot of shit about getting older—your metabolism slows down, you can’t sleep as long, your joints hurt, you get wrinkles—but no one ever told him how much _sweatier_ you get. Dennis has sweated off all of his makeup by now, revealing a grotesque face underneath. And that’s another thing about Mac: he doesn’t wear any makeup to sweat off. He just _looks _like that. When they stand next to each other, the differences are stark and troubling. Right now, no one—man or woman—would choose Dennis over Mac. Which is a _huge_ fucking bummer. 

So, then, maybe Dennis shouldn’t stand next to Mac. Maybe Dennis should put his shirt back on. Maybe Dennis should just go home. Maybe Dennis should go back to North Dakota. Maybe Dennis should go even further west—Idaho, maybe, or California. Maybe— 

“Here, have another.” Mac interrupts Dennis’s train of thought by thrusting a warm bottle of beer at him—warm, because their refrigerator is broken, and their ice machine is broken, and Dee and Charlie left to get some ice like five hours ago, so they’re probably dead. “Gotta stay hydrated.”

Dennis grunts something resembling a “thanks,” twists off the bottle cap, and takes a sip. Even though it’s warm, it’s still nice. 

Fanning himself with one hand, Mac nods towards the dancing girls. “You gonna get in there?”

If the temperature were lower, Dennis would be able to think of a lie, some kind of rationalization about why he’s just gonna stay on the sidelines: the girls aren’t that hot, or he’s collecting information so he can make an informed decision about the best target, or he’s waiting for the girls to come to _him_, or he’s already banged one of them and he’s recharging, or—but the temperature is not lower, so Dennis just shrugs a shoulder. 

Mac frowns, surprised. “Why not?” 

“Because, Mac,” Dennis snaps. Patience is at a premium in this heat. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“I’m just—”

“Why don’t _you _get in there, if you’re so goddamn horny for them!”

“They’re _chicks_, Dennis,” Mac says, incredulous. “I’m gay.”

“Oh, _are _you?!” Dennis cries, absolutely drenched in sarcasm. “Gee, silly me! I must have forgotten, since you haven’t mentioned it in the _last five fucking minutes_.” 

“Fuck, man,” Mac says. “I’m just tryin’ to get you laid, but go ahead, be a bitch about it.”

Dennis shuts his eyes. “I don’t _need _your help to get laid, oh my god.”

“Okayyy.” Mac stretches out the word with overt skepticism. 

“If _anyone _is being a bitch, it’s you.”

“It’s the heat, dude.” 

“Don’t blame the heat, okay? It’s not the heat. It’s never _been _the heat. It’s _you_.”

Mac’s head lolls backwards and he fans his neck. “I don’t want to do this right now.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Make more sense.” 

“Your whole ‘I hate Mac’ act. It’s too fucking hot, I’m too tired, I don’t have it in me.” 

Dennis screws up his face in confusion. “_‘Act’_? What ‘act’?”

“Seriously, Dennis. Just. Drop it.”

“Fine, asshole. If I annoy you so goddamn much, go stand somewhere else.”

“_You_ go stand somewhere else.”

“I’m not standing. I’m sitting.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

Neither of them move. 

Dennis takes another drink. Mac leans over the bar, grabs a rag, and starts wiping himself down. It’s distracting in ways Dennis wishes it wasn’t, so he focuses intensely on the floor. 

Something was in the news the other day; there are things frozen in the permafrost up in the Arctic circle, ancient bacteria and viruses and shit, and now that the permafrost is melting, those things are being released into the wild again and no one knows what kind of diseases they’re going to cause. Fucking apocalyptic, is what that is. Everything was so much better even just a few years ago, when you could ignore the rising temperatures and pretend like “global warming” was only some kind of liberal misinterpretation of signals. But that’s the thing about the truth: it always gets to a point when you can’t ignore it. Or, you can ignore it, but you’ll probably die if you do. 

Dennis glances to the side and does a double-take when he realizes with a jolt of panic that Mac has disappeared. Dennis jumps to his feet and starts pushing his way through the crowded bar, looking for Mac, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Shit. _Shit_. Dennis has told Mac to go away a thousand times; every single time, Dennis has felt a surge of adrenaline that maybe _that _would be the time that Mac would actually leave for real, but he never has. 

Of _course _today would be the day Mac would finally listen.

Dennis feels even more exposed _without_ Mac by his side. Sure, Mac always comes out on top in side-by-side comparisons, but at least they’re side-by-side. At least Mac is there to tell Dennis that the comparison itself is bullshit, that even if he _was_ ugly it wouldn’t matter because it’s what’s on the inside that counts. 

Mac isn’t anywhere in the bar. He’s not in the back office. He’s not in either of the bathrooms. He’s not in the back alley. He’s not in front of the bar. Dennis rushes back inside and is the hot, stuffy air in the bar immediately slams him in the face. It’s so humid that every breath feels like he’s drowning. Dennis tries to think of somewhere to go where he could feel safe and just as the panic starts to bubble over into something truly awful, he remembers: the basement.

The basement will still be warm, but it’ll be cooler than the bar. Less bodies, plus it’s underground. Dennis shoves past some people, one of which turns out to be Frank, who’s dancing in between two busty ladies. “Hey Dennis! You oughta get in here!” Frank cries, grinning and absolutely shitfaced. “Global warming is the tits!” 

Dennis doesn’t even acknowledge him. Instead, he darts into the keg room, shuts the door behind him, and leans on it for a second to catch his breath.

The bassline of the music playing in the bar is so loud that it’s vibrating the door, but it’s still much quieter in here, and already a bit cooler. The temperature lowers even more as Dennis descends the stairs. He sits on the bottom step, so relieved he could cry. And he’s alone, so he does. 

“Dennis?”

“_Jesus_!” Dennis cries as he jumps about a foot in the air. He wipes his eyes hurriedly. “I didn’t know anyone was down here.” 

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s—” Dennis was going to say “okay,” but is it? His heart is still pounding. It has been for a little while now, though. “I thought you took off.”

“Just taking a break,” Mac says. He steps out from underneath the stairs where he had been sitting. “Who’s tending the bar?”

“Who gives a shit,” Dennis mutters. 

“Well, I feel like _we _should,” Mac says after a second. “But I really don’t.”

Dennis nods in agreement, breathes in deep through his nose, out through his mouth slowly. His bare chest and back are cold where the air hits the sweat. Why didn’t he think of the basement sooner? 

“Hey, Dennis?” Mac asks, hesitantly. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you think the world is ending?” 

Dennis thinks about it for a second. “Yeah, probably.” 

He only realizes that he’s moved over to make room for Mac when Mac sits down next to him on the step. Putting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, Dennis mumbles, softly, “It’s not an act, you know.”

“I know.” For being the most impatient person Dennis knows, Mac has the patience of a saint.

They sit there in silence for a little while, the bass thumping above them, and Dennis wonders: _is _it an act, the way he hates Mac? It comes so easily to him, he’s always assumed that it must be authentic, but now that he’s thinking about it, now that he’s down here, now that the end of the world is staring them all in the face, he has to admit that he has no idea anymore which parts of him are performance and which parts are real. 

So many people on TV and online and in the newspapers scream about global warming; they say sure, there’s _data_, there are _statistics_, but that doesn’t mean the world is _ending_. They interpret those numbers, twist them to mean whatever they want, despite the fact that the truth is obvious. And, honestly, Dennis gets it. Sometimes the truth is just too terrifying, and when it’s not this hot, when there aren’t freak snowstorms and hurricanes, when the West Coast isn’t on fire, when things are normal, when the climate is behaving the way it did before it decided to change, well…it’s easy to forget. 

But that doesn’t stop the permafrost from melting. 

It’s fucking gut-wrenching, if you let yourself think about it too long. Dennis gets it. He really does. 

He reaches over and, without looking up, places his hand palm-down on Mac’s thigh.

Mac covers Dennis’s hand with his own, threads their fingers together. Dennis lets him. 

“Maybe,” Dennis starts, but his voice falters. Mac rubs his thumb along the side of Dennis’s hand. A shaky breath helps him regroup: “Maybe it is an act.” 

Mac squeezes his hand, firm and reassuring and _there_. “I know.” 

Dennis sits back. He doesn’t want to, but he forces himself to look; up close, he sees that Mac does have some wrinkles, his beard is kind of patchy, his eyes do slant down, he’s got some weird freckles, he has some gray hair at his temples, his lips are chapped, he’s sweating like a pig. He’s not nearly as perfect as Dennis makes him out to be in his head. But it doesn’t matter. 

And yet that’s not quite right, is it? Because it _does _matter. God, does it matter. It matters so much more than Dennis could ever hope to understand. Every single part of Mac matters in a way that Dennis had hoped could stay frozen under the permafrost forever because who knows what kind of terrible things would be set free if it ever melted? But now it’s November and it’s been 99 degrees for the past week and the world is ending and— 

Dennis presses his lips to Mac’s. 

Mac kisses him back immediately, like he’s been expecting it, gentle and warm and just plain _kind_ in a way it couldn’t have been five years ago, or ten, or twenty-five, and Dennis thinks, _of course_, and he turns his head to the side, deepens the kiss; Mac lets out a short, breathy moan and places a warm hand on the back of Dennis’s neck and pulls him closer, their lips fitting together.

They kiss like that for a minute before Dennis pulls back, but they stay close, noses bumping, breathing heavily. Someone upstairs laughs loudly over the booming bass. A bottle smashes. It doesn’t matter; upstairs might as well be on a whole other planet. Dennis reaches up, framing Mac’s face with his hands, rubbing his thumbs along his cheekbones; Mac’s eyes are searching and open and bright. Mac keeps his one hand on the back of Dennis’s neck, the other hand tracing wandering patterns on Dennis’s chest. It’s too hot for them to go any further, but this is…well. It doesn’t suck. 

“I didn’t,” Dennis says. His voice is hoarse and shaky. “I just didn’t want the world to end without doing that.” 

“Me neither.” 

They both laugh a little, then go back to just breathing together, sharing the same air. Dennis is getting hot again, and he wants to stand up, wants to ask what’s next, wants to run away, wants to tell Mac he hates him—but more than any of those things, and maybe for the first time in his life, Dennis actually _wants _to be exactly where he is. Doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Because if the world really is ending, there’s no one else Dennis would rather have by his side when it does. 

**Author's Note:**

> thnks guys im @oysters-aint-for-me on tumblr plz kudos/comment if u liked it love u all! <3


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